tirsdag den 14. september 2010

My experience with vanilla WoW.

Uhrmf, I really don’t know how to start this blog so if the start makes you think – what the fuck, I do apologize. My idea with this blog was to cover the release of the long waited and quite interesting expansion to the MMO scene, and I do not talk about Diablo 3 (even though it will be quite interesting as well), but about World of Warcraft – Cataclysm and the still unknown release date.
However, since there isn’t an official release date yet I could sit around and wait awhile, so instead I decided to “warm up” and see how ghastly my Engrish had become and share my World of Warcraft experiences with you.

I guess the most logical place to start is with the beginning of my first and quite frankly pathetic first steps in game, but then again we all had to start somewhere and I started at the bottom. I bought my copy of World of Warcraft the 02/01/06 and what a journey it has been. A friend of mine who had been playing the game a little longer than me suggested me to start on the Trollbane EU realm (For those of you who doesn’t know there is an EU and US version of the servers) and I started out with the most amazing character the realm had ever seen – A gnome mage with red hair, a big moustache and completely clueless of how anything worked, but he was on a quest to throw fireballs and frostbolts at any foe who dared to cross my path of retribution and goodness for I was to become a champion of the alliance, a hero of the light, or that was my intentions until I actually became aware of the gameplay.

I fooled around being slower to level than a turtle, but I finally got to level 60 in greens and blues and I was starting to understand just a little of the game, and yes this was the time of the incredible hard frostbolt spam. One thing I do remember was my first Magister’s piece it felt amazing - those stats, the blue color and possible set bonuses in the future, but nothing happened for a while and I started to farm Timbermaw Hold reputation for the amazing +15 Agility on 1handed enchant and there I met a druid with who I teamed up for farming the rep. This was my way into raiding due to he joined a guild a week or so later and they were trying to gather people for the flabbergasting, amazing and truly epic raid instanceMolten Core. It was my first experience with more than 10 people I was thrilled and excited and even though we wiped a few times on the trash who either was immensely hard or we sucked donkey balls (we sucked), however it was great fun and we actually managed to take down Lucifron, Magmadar and Ghennas I didn’t receive any loot, but just the sheer thrill to take down a new and big bad mother fucker, oh yeah this is why I still raid.

This made me think – Hey, I can be a raider and I started to search for a raiding guild instead of the casual dungeon guild I was in. I honestly can’t recall if I made an application to my first guild Hazzard or if I just talked a little with an officer of the guild, but long story short I got in the guild and in Hazzard I experienced the rest of Molten Core (ghastly video quality movie of Ragnaros) and taking downRagnaros was one of the best online experiences I have experienced.
Molten Core was done and we ventured into the next raid instance Blackwing Lair

After our Ragnaros kill we gradually started to change our destination a little and that was of course guided tours into the dragon infested halls of Blackwing Lair. All that I can remember of the first boss is the feeling “F##KING” adds, however, we managed to take it down and looked at a dragon, which in first glimpse looked to be a walkover, but oh boy were we up for a surprise. For those of you who did play with the encounter during Vanilla I reckon you know what I am talking about. Vaelastrasz the Corrupt was a bitch and along with the fact that I think is not to be underestimated: We sucked donkey balls

I guess I need to make a little comment on the 40man raid environment – Unless and I repeat unless (or that is my experience) you played in what would today be called a hardcore top 50 guild you had tops and I repeat that TOPS 15-20 people who knew what they were doing and had actually studied the encounter – 10 people who almost knew what they were doing and then the remaining 10-15 people who either was afk. Auto attacking /melee huntards or wanding who which the raid could easily have done without in my humble and useless opinion.

Back to BWL and I must admit I can’t recall much of the instance tho after some thinking a part seems to crawl forward from the abyss which I refer to as my brain. If I remember correctly it was pull - run 20 yards, aoe - rinse and repeat for what I recall as 20-30minutes just to wipe on the boss and do it all over again. Now for those who always seems to say “Oh, everything was way better back in the days when things were hard and it is walkover and piece of cake these days – I say fuck ya, the reason for it being so abnormally hard was the majority of us sucked and the encounters had a serious amount of trash before each boss which today would be considered as several mini bosses – and because it is true we sucked or at least the majority of us did.

Ahh, it always feels good to ramble and taking the first steps towards being an angry and grumpy old man. I must admit I can hardly remember the next few bosses up until Nefarian (or Neffie) except there was something with decursing like a lunatic.

Though eventually we stood in Nefarian's room, and oh boy was he a challenge, and truly an epic encounter according to my blurry memories. I will sum up what I can remember and fill in addition info which I will copy pate from various websites because I am a lazy bum. However, here goes: Adds spawning from two sides of which there were two gates each place and they were to be tanked and aoeed down then an air phase in which we usually lost quite a few people in the beginning due to people “forgetting” to take their cloak on (insert link) and in the phase he did something, but I can’t recall what, but I do remember giraffes and other zoo animals being all over the place.

Since I played a mage I guess it is in its place to mention that during BWL the mages in my guild, and I would guess the majority changed spec to fire and began to cast fireballs (oh, the rolling ignite days) instead of the incomprehensive and mind-blowing frostbolt spam.

After we in some lucky + rng along with severe luck we managed to take him down and we now set our eyes on the next challenge, which was the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj or usually referred to as AQ40. The trash was harder than some of the bosses in the previous instances and the temple being incredible large, no that just not justify it - It was bloody enormous. While we were progress in AQ40 another instance was released, and yes this is where you properly is sure – Hey, he isn’t even raiding hardcore what a waste of time to read and you Sir/Madame are properly correct, however I continue.

The instance that we in the current expansion “Wrath of the Lich King” only speak of as a joke, yes the instance Naxxramas today it is a walkover it was that when the expansion was released and people wearing Sunwell gear along with blues managed to clear it, however it must be said that those people is what you would call pretty damn good players for the most part.

Back to Vanilla and my first experience with Naxx: We started in the Military wing and after some sheer dumb luck we managed to take down Instructor Raz, and that was all I encountered except for some completely failures at Patchwerk.

I guess one of the reasons why we didn’t progress much more in Naxx was that it was not too long before the next expansion was released and there was not much point in farming gear which properly would be replaced shortly after by greens and blues because they were much better itemized.